Nurse, family hope for healing after brain tumor removed

As a nurse, Coeur d’Alene resident Rachel Cieply-Peters has spent 10 years of her career tending to vulnerable patients. 

She’s helped hundreds of families and saved newborns through her work at the Neonatal ICU and Pediatric Cardiology centers. 

For the last few years, however, she has been plagued by medical crises and the resulting financial fallout from medical needs, aftercare treatments, travel, hotels, child care and lost wages. 

In 2023, she was diagnosed with a colloid cyst in the third ventricle of her brain at the Mayo Clinic. 

Cieply-Peters’ mother-in-law, Rachel Peters, shared that her daughter-in-law just had successful surgery Thursday in South Carolina. 

“She woke up and asked for pictures of her 3-year-old son,” Peters said.    

Because of the difficulties in accessing the tumor, side effects of the surgery can often cause short-term and long-term memory loss.    

The health crisis has been tough for Cieply-Peters and her husband, Tyrell Peters, to bear as they have also been raising 3-year-old Russell. 

Peters has been helping watch Russell while his parents concentrate on his mom’s recovery.  

“When she found out she had this brain tumor about a year and a half ago, she had a lot of vertigo, a lot of migraines, a lot of headaches,” Rachel Peters said. “The doctor’s very confident. We’re hoping that it will go away; we’re hoping it will because it’s a benign tumor.” 

Peters said because of her daughter-in-law's medical background, Cieply-Peters wants to educate and potentially save other people by sharing her experiences.

“We’re just asking for a full recovery and that she can be Russell’s full-time mom and tell her story,” Rachel Peters said. 

Learn more by visiting Cieply-Peters' GoFundMe page.

    Rachel Cipley Peters, Tyrell Peters and Russell Peters pose for a family photo.